John the
Baptist, who is also held in high esteem among the Mahometans, a part of
their Bacchanalian mysteries, an absurdity of a kind which it but too
frequently met with in human affairs. How far a remembrance of the
history of St. John's death may have had an influence on this occasion
we would leave learned theologians to decide. It is of importance here
to add only that in Abyssinia, a country entirely separated from Europe,
where Christianity has maintained itself in its primeval simplicity
against Mahometanism, John is to this day worshipped as protecting saint
of those who are attacked with the dancing malady. In these fragments of
the dominion of mysticism and superstition, historical connection is not
to be found.

When we observe, however, that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle
appeared in July with St. John's name in their mouths, the conjecture is
probable that the wild revels of St. John's Day, A.D. 1374, gave rise to
this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many thousands with
incurable aberration of mind and disgusting distortions of body.

This is rendered so much the more probable because some months
previously the districts in the neighborhood of the Rhine and the Maine
had met with great disasters. So early as February both these rivers had
overflowed their banks to a great extent; the walls of the town of
Cologne, on the side next the Rhine, had fallen down, and a great many
villages had been reduced to the utmost distress. To this was added the
miserable condition of Western and Southern Germany. Neither law nor
edict could suppress the incessant feuds of the barons, and in Franconia
especially the ancient times of club law appeared to be revived.
Security of property there was none; arbitrary will everywhere
prevailed; corruption of morals and rude power rarely met with even a
feeble opposition; whence it arose that the cruel, but lucrative,
persecutions of the Jews were in many places still practised, through
the whole of this century, with their wonted ferocity. Thus, throughout
the western parts of Germany, and especially in the districts bordering
on the Rhine, there was a wretched and oppressed populace; and if we
take into consideration that among their numerous bands many wandered
about whose consciences were tormented with the recollection of the
crimes which they had committed during the prevalence of the black
plague, we shall comprehend how their despair sought relief i